


waiting & wanting

by ladydetective



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: (Cora to Regina), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon compliant until s3, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 20:31:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12154236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladydetective/pseuds/ladydetective
Summary: Regina had always wanted a soulmate - it was a pretty idea and one that provided comfort to a girl living in difficult circumstances.  She, unlike legions of people in the Enchanted Forest, was born without a mark. She eventually gives up on expecting one to appear on her wrist, and continues on the dark path paved for her by Rumplestiltskin unfettered by such common desires.It works quite well for her - until she wakes up on the first day in her cursed town with a name on her wrist.





	waiting & wanting

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a relatively short multi-chapter, maybe 3 or 4 parts in total. The first chapter is Regina-centric, but Emma will be around later. As it deals with Regina's early childhood, there is some child abuse, hence the warning.  
> Henry Sr's quote about love was inspired by a scene from Call the Midwife.  
> I'm considering writing a companion piece from Emma's POV, going through her experiences etc., thoughts?  
> Hope you all enjoy this, and please consider leaving a comment!

 

 

 

 

 

Regina awoke on her first morning in Storybrooke – the first morning of her curse, the first morning of her revenge, the first morning of her freedom – to a peculiar burning sensation of her wrist. She immediately sat bolt upright, and inspected the offending limb. _Was this some sort of unforeseen effect of the curse?_ Worry began to claw at her gut, but it was soon replaced by something else – bemusement – when words began to form. Two of them in total – eight letters, written in an elegant cursive. _Emma Swan_.

 

 

 

Soulmates were taken seriously in the Enchanted Forest. It was a realm that put great stock in the concepts of true love and perfect happiness, so it was only natural that its inhabitants were concerned to the point of obsession with locating their soulmates. There were any number of lucrative businesses and agencies designed to help people find their perfect match, and an entire squad of fairies whose entire purpose was dealing with soulmate-related inquiries.

 

 

 

Almost everyone was born with a mark, or had one materialise in the first few months of life.  They  were taken  as a sign of normalcy, and parents often felt re-assured that their child’s future happiness  was secured  .  In odd cases, a soulmark may appear in early adolescence – though that was  exceptionally  rare. In general, every person in the realm was in possession of a mark by their thirteenth birthday.

 

 

 

Regina was an exception to this rule. She was not born with a mark, and nor did one appear later on.  All throughout her childhood, she had waited with baited breath for one to appear – indeed, some of her earliest memories included scouring her body for any trace of a mark, wishing it would hurry up and get here – but it never did. Every morning, she would  be disappointed.  As the years wore on, the servants began to whisper about her – some with scorn, some with pity, some with derision – but all spoke as if it was something shameful.

 

 

 

Mother didn’t have a mark, either. The servants had never dared to whisper about _her_.  She had always insisted that they were better off this way, that there were things far more important than love. Magic. Money. Power. Always power, above all else. Love was nought but a weakness, after all.

 

 

 

Regina – young, vibrant Regina – hadn’t believed her.

 

 

 

(Of course, she would come to. Love would  eventually  fail her – power, control, freedom? They would not.)

 

 

 

Regina’s father,  on the other hand  , _did_ have a mark. It bore the name of another woman, one he’d known long before Cora. He’d told her the story, once – it hadn’t had a happy ending. It had been full of tragedy and loss and despair – but it had been worth it. The pain it cost to love, he’d maintained, was always worth it.  Young Regina had taken this to heart, and she carried it with her for the rest of her life – though likely not in the way her father had intended.

 

 

 

Cora had found out about that particular discussion – she always seemed to find out, about _everything_ – and both of them had been  harshly  reprimanded . Regina still bore the scars today.

 

 

 

Once, in her early teens – when she’d been coming up to the normal deadline for the appearance of a soulmark – she’d summoned the fairies, and had pleaded with them to grant her one.  They had  curtly  refused her, muttering some nonsense about _fate taking its course_ and _some people not deserving a happy ending_. Regina hadn’t understood, at the time – weren’t the fairies supposed to help children in need? Why wouldn't they help her?

 

 

 

But she got over it,  eventually. She was not,  however  ,  entirely  unscathed.  Regina learned to stop looking for a mark, to stop hoping for one to appear, and to stop listening to stories of soulmates. But most  importantly  – she learned that asking for help was an exercise in futility.

 

 

 

(That was another lesson that she would carry with her. No one would help her without expecting something in return, and no one would care enough to try. She was the only one she could rely on. It would be a long time before someone would prove her wrong.)

 

 

 

Cora, of course, delighted in her daughter’s  apparent  newfound disillusionment with the concept of soulmates. It would serve Regina well, she had insisted, in the years to come.  Kings and Princes and Dukes and Earls, after all, did not concern themselves with such trivial matters, and Regina shouldn’t either.

 

 

 

Something that would delight Cora less was Regina’s fresh determination to find love outside of the soulmate bond  .  Because while she no longer believed that a soulmate was something she would ever have, her father’s words still weighed  heavily  on her heart.  She craved the kind of love he had described, and she would find it for herself if fate would not deign itself to be forthcoming.

 

 

 

Despite the  insipidly  romantic nature of the Enchanted Forest, Regina was not  entirely  alone in this pursuit.  There were always those who had become disillusioned with the concept of soulmates, or those who were unhappy with the person that fate had tethered them to.

 

 

 

Daniel was of the latter type. His mark bore the name of a woman he’d grown up with, a woman that he loved but not in a romantic sense. Besides, he’d been in love with Regina for  just  about as long as he could remember.  It had taken Regina years to notice him – she’d held on to the hope that her mark would appear for longer than she would later care to admit – but once she had, it was as if some kind of fog had lifted.  Daniel  swiftly  became her everything – her love, her solace, her happiness – and she became unable to imagine a future without him in it .

 

 

 

And then her darkest nightmare became reality, and Daniel died. He died at the hands of her mother, but at the fault of Snow White.  Precious, simpering Snow White – who’d grown up with parents who had loved her and a happy future assured by the two words emblazoned on her wrist. All Regina had left to cling to now was her freedom, and that would  be stripped  from her soon enough.

 

 

 

(Because no matter what her mother had always claimed, power and freedom did not come hand in hand.  Regina had been the second most powerful person in the realm –  certainly  the most powerful woman – yet she’d never felt more trapped .)

 

 

 

Regina began to crave vengeance with the same vigour as she had once craved a soulmate, and so the Evil Queen was born.  It was a title she had embraced with relish, because there had been no room for a soulmate when her very bones cried out for retribution. There had been no room for wishing when all she dreamed was Snow White’s head on a platter. There had been no room for love when all she felt was darkness.

 

 

 

The Curse  was meant  to be her escape – her escape from darkness and despair, her escape from soulmates and true love, her escape from the triumph on Snow White and Prince Charming.  She  was meant  to awaken in this new realm to celebration, to success, to winning _for once_ – but most  importantly  , to freedom.

 

 

 

Instead, all Regina could feel was the burn of the mark as it etched its way onto her skin. _Impossible_. This was _impossible_. People didn’t get marks this late in life – there were no recorded cases, no other precedent. . . the fairies, common sense, society. . .  everything said that this was impossible, that Regina couldn’t be seeing what she thought she saw in front of her eyes – and yet . . .

 

 

 

And yet, another impossible thing had happened. Regina – the Evil Queen – felt a kernel of hope rise within her chest, her first in a very long time.  Perhaps  –  perhaps  her curse had given her what the fairies and her mother and her own body had failed to do –  perhaps  the curse had given her a soulmate.

 

 

 

She  closely  inspected the mark on her wrist again. _Emma Swan_ . It was a woman’s name.  That made a certain degree of sense, and definitely didn’t come as a surprise – she’d always found the female form  equally  as attractive as the male one. More so, if she was being honest.  As a child, she’d quashed any impulse to act on these desires for fear of her mother’s reaction – which would  surely  have been severe. When she’d been free of Cora’s control,  however  , she’d had a bit of fun. Maleficent had been most helpful in showing her what she’d been missing.

 

 

 

So, Emma Swan being a woman did not come as a surprise to her. What _was_ a cause for concern,  however  , was the fact that it was not a name that she recognised.  Regina had encountered a good  portion  of the nobility and other key figures within the Enchanted Forest during her swift rise to power, but never anyone with that particular name.  Perhaps  she’d been a peasant, a person of little enough consequence that she would never have had cause to cross paths with the Evil Queen. Regina could live with that.  She thought back to the life she’d always wished for with Daniel – a life full of work and children and love, always love – and imagined a similar one with this _Emma Swan_. Despite her better instincts, she felt her excitement begin to rise.

 

 

 

Over the following days and weeks, Regina spent her time acclimatising to Storybrooke.  She learned the roles everyone had here, mastered the strange technology of this land, but above all – above all, she scoured the town for signs of Emma Swan.  She searched face after face, looking for any flash of recognition, something that would help her identify this person she was missing, but . . .nothing.

 

 

 

She felt the beginnings of the old frustration returning, but one tentative hope remained: she had heard tell of soulmates whom had  been separated by  cases of mistaken identity – it had happened with Snow White and Prince Charming, after all – and  dearly  hoped that that was the case here. She put Sidney on it, and waited day after day for results – only for him to come back empty handed.

 

 

 

_It doesn’t matter_ , Regina told herself viciously again and again, _it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter_.  She’d long since made peace with the fact that she would never have a soulmate, and she shouldn’t have allowed this foolish, _foolish_ notion to distract her from her goals. The curse – her curse – had been all she’d wanted for a very long time. After all she’d done to get here – after all that she’d _sacrificed_ – this _had_ to be her happy ending. It had to be, and she _didn’t_ require a soulmate for it to work out as it was meant to.

 

 

 

Regina threw herself into this mentality for a long, long time.  She pretended she was happy, she pretended that the curse was providing her with everything she wanted, she pretended to revel in the vengeance she’d fought for for so long .

 

 

 

But that was what she was doing – pretending.

 

 

 

Oh, it was easy enough to do, in the beginning.  This world had plenty of distractions she could absorb herself with – art, literature, television – and Regina became a connoisseur of them all.  She filled out mayoral paperwork with a diligence seldom seen, she made little improvements to her town and to the lives of its citizens – but still it was not enough. Maleficent had been correct, much as Regina was loath to admit it. Casting the curse had left a hole, a void that she would never be able to fill.

 

 

 

Except – she didn’t want to believe that. This curse  was supposed  to be her triumph, and she would not accept that there was nothing she could do. She did not want to believe that it had all been for nothing.

 

 

 

So she started searching for ways to fill that void.  After several tedious conversations with Archie, Regina realised what would fill that hole – a child .

 

 

 

A child. She’d always wanted one. As a young woman, she and Daniel had dreamed of a house full of children. It had been all she’d wanted, all she’d longed for. . . but then, of course, her mother had discovered a way to use that desire against her. Any child she bore would end up another pawn in her game, and Regina would not condemn another child to that fate. So she’d taken the potion, she’d taken the potion and stripped her body of its ability to create the thing she’d wanted.

 

 

 

But  just  because Regina’s body was incapable of producing a child, it didn’t mean that she was incapable of becoming a mother.  This world in particular had a multitude of ways to surpass that pesky biological barrier.

 

 

 

Adoption seemed the most promising of these solutions.  Regina spent weeks researching it, hunched over a computer that she had finally mastered the usage of, looking over potential pitfalls and discovering any information that she needed to know  .  Finally, she began contacting agencies, an excited knot in her stomach - only to discover that in most places, the waiting lists were a  minimum  of two years long  . That wouldn’t do.  Regina had waited long enough – almost eighteen years in fact, the majority of it spent feeling listless and empty. Now that she had discovered the thing that would help her fill that void, she didn’t want to wait another two years. Patience wasn’t exactly something she’d ever  been accused  of. Gold – he would be able to help.

 

 

 

As it turned out, he _had_ been able to. Less than a fortnight later, Regina found herself driving out to Boston to meet her son. It was one of only a handful of times that she had left Storybrooke, and usually the journey would mesmerise her.  There was something fascinating about watching people go about their day to day lives, especially for a woman whom had spent the past eighteen years living in a town where the same day was more or less repeated over and over again. This time,  however  , she  barely  registered a minute of the several hour long trek.  Her insides were a jumble of excitement and anxiety, warring in almost equal measure – _could she do this_ _? Could she be a mother_?

 

 

 

All of  those worries fell away the instant she laid eyes on her son.

 

 

 

He was perfect, the most perfect little boy that she had ever seen.  For years, Regina had felt empty, had struggled to feel anything other than the dull monotony of Storybrooke, but now, looking down at her baby boy – her _son_ – Regina felt more than she had in a long, long time  . She knew almost  instantly  that she would do anything for him, become whatever person he needed her to be.

 

 

 

So, Regina loved her son. She loved him so much that sometimes, it  physically  hurt. But it was also _hard_ . Henry cried _all the time_ , and Regina didn’t know what she could do to stop it.  She had tried everything – everything her  admittedly  limited experience had given her, everything the internet suggested, even the advice that the insipid townspeople had given her – and still, the crying persisted.  She had even gone to Doctor Whale, to make sure that there wasn’t something physical wrong with her little prince – though dread coiled in her stomach at the thought – but he had insisted that Henry was fine.

 

 

 

Doubts began to creep into Regina’s mind. If it was  truly  not something physical, then that meant that it was _her_ fault.  Maybe  Henry, on some sort of strange subconscious level, realised exactly what she was, the thing’s she’d done. . .  maybe  the incessant crying was some form of punishment,  maybe  he’d never be able to love her.

 

 

 

_That_ particular thought made her heart clench.  She loved her little boy so much already, and she knew that she would not be able to bear it if that love ran unreciprocated .

 

 

 

_No_ , thought thought  viciously  , _no. It had to be something physical_ . Physical she could handle, physical she could find a way to cure. And the first step to that was  apparently  to contact the birth mother, if Whale was to  be believed.  The fact that the woman who abandoned him could provide Henry with something that she couldn’t was galling, but for Henry, she would do it.

 

 

 

And so Sidney  was put  on the case. The results came back in a matter of days, and were. . . surprising, to say the least.  She ran her finger over the two words on the piece of paper almost  wonderingly  ,  scarcely  believing that they were true  . _Emma Swan_ . . . it couldn’t  possibly  be a coincidence.  For one glorious moment, Regina allowed herself to imagine it: meeting the soulmate she’d been desperate to encounter her entire life, raising Henry together, becoming a proper _family_ . . it almost seemed too good to be true.

 

 

 

And it was. No sooner than Regina had had the happy vision, her eyes slid down the rest of the paper and narrowed in disbelief.  Emma Swan had,  apparently  , been born on the day that Regina’s curse came into being, to nameless parents whom had abandoned her on the side of the freeway  just  outside of Storybrooke.

 

 

 

She was the _Saviour._

 

 

The Saviour was her _soulmate_.

 

 

 

Her soulmate was _Henry’s birth mother_.

 

 

 

And  just  like that, Regina was face with an impossible choice: her soulmate and her son, or her curse. If Emma Swan was the Saviour, she would find her way to Storybrooke  eventually. Henry’s presence here guaranteed it. Her curse would  be broken  , and she would  be defeated.

 

 

 

Regina’s eyes slid over the baby in the stroller.  He was sitting  quietly  , for once – Regina had thought that they’d  eventually  had a breakthrough, the two of them – and was staring at her with those big, blue eyes. She loved him so much. . . and she needed to give him up. For the curse, for her happy ending. . . and for him, too. Henry deserved better than the Evil Queen as a mother. He deserved the whole world.

 

 

 

And so Regina found herself driving back to the agency in Boston, Henry in tow.  Just  as her previous journey had felt like it had ended in the blink of an eye, this one trickled on at an almost glacial pace. She had  barely  been able to look at Henry, who’d been  safely  ensconced in his travel seat, the whole way there.

 

 

 

As soon as she was alone with him in the office,  however , she couldn’t look away.

 

 

 

How could she do this to him? He’d already  been abandoned  once.  Though he may not remember any of this – remember any of _her_ , and she would be lying if she said that didn’t affect her  tremendously  – he _would_ find out when he was older. _Two_ abandonments would be devastating to any child’s psyche.

 

 

 

And they’d finally gotten into something that resembled a routine, after weeks and weeks of struggling . Henry didn’t scream every time she went near him, anyway, and could even sometimes be rather cute with her. Regina had found herself loving him more and more with every passing moment.

 

 

 

She’d enclosed a detailed list of instructions for his care along with  all of  his things, but there was  truly  no guarantee that these people would stick to them . If they were as incompetent as her mayoral staff in Storybrooke, in fact, Regina could be sure that they wouldn’t.

 

 

 

And Gods, she’d miss him. She’d miss him every day.

 

 

 

As Regina looked at her beautiful little boy for the last time, she imagined the fate that was before her. She’d return to the mayoral mansion – which would be full of reminders of Henry, but lacking the baby himself.  She’d  probably  go to her study and pour herself a drink, then another, and another, and another until it finally felt like the pain had  been numbed  somewhat .

 

 

 

(There was no amount of alcohol that would ever be able to  fully  ease that pain, but Regina knew that she would try.)

 

 

 

She would then retire to bed, and  be plagued by  the nightmares that had haunted her for  just  about as long as she could remember.  The following day, she would rise and make her way over to city hall, pretending her heart was not breaking the entire day there. And repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat.

 

 

 

It was a dismal prospect, made  infinitely  worse by the fact that she now knew what happiness felt like – Henry had shown her that.  The idea of returning to that existence without the presence of her little prince was too much, and she felt her throat begin to close up and her eyes fill with tears. She couldn’t do this.

 

 

 

And  just  like that, Regina made a decision. She knew that it would haunt her in the years to come, but in that moment, she found she couldn’t care less. She may be the Evil Queen, but she was Henry’s mother too. And Henry would come home with her.

 

 

 

She grabbed Henry’s stroller, tickling his stomach for good measure and laughed with something akin to relief at the smile it provoked, and returned to Storybrooke – returned _home_ – without a second thought.

 

 

 

Regina didn’t regret her decision, and she never would.  No matter how difficult her life would become in the years to come – _ten_ years , to be exact – she didn’t regret keeping Henry. He was her son, and she loved him. As the days wore on, she became more and more confident that he loved her too.

 

 

 

However  , there was still one thing that was giving her pause, one thing that was tainting her time with Henry – the Saviour. Her _soulmate_ . Bringing Henry back to Storybrooke had ensured that she would  eventually  turn up.  Almost like she had when she had first arrived in this realm, Regina found herself  anxiously  scanning every face in town looking for someone new.  There was a part of her that was still excited at the prospect of meeting Emma Swan, as she had been when she’d first woken up and seen the name emblazoned on her wrist, but it was being  rapidly  overtaken by her common sense . She didn’t need a soulmate. She had Henry, she had her curse. Emma Swan would destroy both.

 

 

 

Sometimes, when Regina looked at her son, she would wonder exactly how long it would be before he  was taken  from her. Would it be weeks? Months? Years?  She didn’t know, and the uncertainty was eroding the last vestiges of her sanity as well as casting a shadow over her relationship with Henry  . It couldn’t  be allowed  to continue. She would _have_ to find a solution.

 

 

 

It took weeks to come up with something that resembled a plan. It  maybe  wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever come up with, but it was an option. Likely her last one – she couldn’t go on like this. She wanted to be the mother that Henry deserved, and she couldn’t do that while obsessing over Emma Swan.  Just  as she’d once taken a potion to prevent her from having children, she would now take one that would allow her to hold on to the one she already has, without fear or paranoia getting in the way.

 

 

 

As she finished preparing the bubbling potion, she had a moment of hesitation. She was throwing away the information she’d spent her life yearning for. Her younger self would never have done it – would have recoiled at the very notion. But her younger self had been a fool. She looked over at Henry, who was gurgling  peaceably  in the corner, and smiled. He was all the happy ending she would ever need. She raised the potion up to her lips, and drank.

 

 

 

Over the course of the next ten years, Regina thought little of Emma Swan.  Stripped of her identity as the Saviour and Henry’s birth mother in her mind, she was now nothing more than a mark on Regina’s arm, a signifier of a failed possibility.  Occasionally  , whenever Henry had hit a particular milestone, Regina would wish that she had someone to share it with  .  Sometimes, she’d gaze almost  longingly  at her wrist and wonder what it would have been like to share these moments with Emma Swan .

 

 

 

But it couldn’t be, and Regina was content – more content than she’d ever been in her entire life.  Henry bought more joy to her days than she could ever remember feeling, and she repaid this enormous debt by being the best mother that it was possible to be.  She hugged her son  freely  , told him she loved him whenever the occasion called for it, and encouraged whatever aspirations he had for the future. She would _not_ be the kind of mother to Henry that Cora had been to her.

 

 

 

Of course, all that fell apart after Henry found out he  was adopted.  It had been an accident,  mostly  – she’d been waiting for the right time to tell him, but he’d overheard some idle conversation between random, insignificant townspeople  .  In the Enchanted Forest, at the height of her power, she would have had them eviscerated for such an offence – but here, in Storybrooke, in the happy ending that she’d built for herself, all she felt was worry for her son  .  He’d looked at her with those big, soulful eyes – the same ones that had convinced her to keep him at the agency all those years ago – and asked her _why_ . Regina had taken him in her arms and explained as well as she could.  He’d been angry and heartbroken, but she’d thought that they’d been working their way back towards the place they had been before when he  was given  that _fucking_ book .

 

 

 

Regina hadn’t known about the book at the time – it had been _Emma Swan_ , of all people, who’d told her about it – she  just  thought that he no longer loved her, that she wasn’t _enough_ because she wasn’t related to him by blood,  just  as she hadn’t been _enough_ for  just  about everyone else in her life. So she’d done what she does best, and pulled away. She’d become harder and colder, more so than she’d been in years, as a form of self defence. The Evil Queen had always been there for her, in the past, why should now be any different?

 

 

 

(Later – much later than she would care to admit – Regina could see that she’d been wrong to treat Henry as she had in those fraught couple of months . She’d hurt a lot of people in the past, but she didn’t regret any of it as much as she regretted hurting Henry.)

 

 

 

And then he’d gone missing. It had been the most terrifying 24 hours of Regina’s long, painful life. She’d woken up that morning, a little later than usual, and _known_ that something was wrong.  She’d pushed the feeling aside – it was a sensation that had permeated the air ever since Henry had found out about the adoption – and had gotten on with preparing breakfast  .  However  angry he’d been with her lately,  however  _afraid_ her may appear of her – and seeing such an emotion directed at her in her precious boy’s eyes was almost too much to bear – he’d been reluctant to miss a meal .  So when he’d failed to appear for blueberry pancakes - she’d even bought the sugary syrup he liked in a bid to coax a smile onto his face – she’d known something was wrong  .  She’d walked up to his room in a daze, knowing what she’d find there, but still felt her heart sink and come close to breaking as she took in the state of his room . It was empty, and he was gone.

 

 

 

Everything had happened very  quickly  after that, and very  slowly.  Most of the day was a blur, but she knew that there were particular instances and feelings that she would remember for the rest of her life .

 

 

 

It wasn't every day that one met one's soulmate, after all.


End file.
